Button sexes it up post de-sexing

I don’t buy into those little doggie jackets that every anthropomorphizing pet owner drools over. In fact, I’d say I’m outright hostile to the idea of breeding a dog to look like a toy and then playing dress-up with it.

That said, I think I’ve stumbled on a goldmine:

The Canine Call-girl Outfit®

Is your pup more tramp than lady? Is she man’s best friend with benefits? Does she know how to wag that piece of tail? Well then The Canine Call-girl Outfit® is exactly what she needs!

This full-body mesh is available in a multitude of monochromatic colours — from bowWOW black to innocent schoolpuppy white.

What’s more, The Canine Call-girl Outfit® is not just for the lassies. The slightly-torn mesh look will make your beefcake bitch the talk of the dog park.

Act now, supplies are unlimited! Only 8 easy payments of 6 jiao, and the The Canine Call-girl Outfit® can be yours!

So yeah… Button got spayed yesterday and came home in that mesh thing. Once I stopped laughing at her (on the inside, don’t want to give the pup a hard time after major surgery) I realized it’s a damn effective way to stop her from licking at the stitches. We have one of those satellite head cone things, but I was dreading using it — and with this mesh outfit, it seems like I might not need to.

We’ve been sweating about getting her spayed for a few weeks now. We’ve not had many confidence-building experiences with Suzhou vets, and I was a little nervous having to turn to one to cut open and remove bits of my dog. After weighing our options and considering going to Shanghai for the procedure, we decided to pay Vet Cao a visit downtown and at least have them run through everything with us.

The biggest thing going against the Shanghai vets, despite no doubt being more of a Western standard of care, is that there is no simple way to transport a dog to and from Shanghai. If we’re lucky enough to find a driver who won’t mind a big hair-shedding (and likely to puke) dog in their backseat, we’re looking at 250-300RMB per trip — tacking on an additional 1000-1200 RMB ($150-175) to the already expensive Shanghai/Western vet price.

Timing was also a factor in the decision. The vet we had been referred to in Shanghai is on holidays until the end of the month, which conflicts with our already-booked trip up to Dalian. Leaving Button to recover with friends wasn’t really our first choice (nor would it be theirs I’m sure!). The only other option would have been to wait until we got back from Dalian and just hope she didn’t go into heat before then.

After our previous dog, Addie, catching us off-guard (we’re no stranger to having this stage of our puppy’s life bring out the sexy garments) when she went into heat around this time last year, we were not looking to repeat the rather messy experience — that, and we’re all out of leopard-print undies.

Fortunately the trip to Vet Cao gave us the confidence we needed. They are one of the few vets in Suzhou that have gas anesthetics, their facility is clean and their vets seem competent. My one big black mark for Vet Cao is that they consistently get bad points for being cheats. Virtually every Chinese message board on the topic of vets in Suzhou complains of this, and as linked to above we’ve experienced this ourselves.

But whether or not they swindled us out of more money on unneeded tack-on costs, it was still going to run cheaper and be way more convenient than a trip to Shanghai. That was Sunday, appointment was yesterday — seven hours at the vet, and 1200 RMB, later and Button will remain baby-less from now on.

She seems to be recovering well; and whether it’s the mesh or her nature, she has not paid much attention to the large piece of gauze or the stitches underneath.

Thanks guys. Button’s recovering perfectly, and hardly seems to notice the stitches, or the mesh outfit. It’ll be nice to be able to take it off early next week though, as I can tell she gets frustrated by it when she needs a scratch.

@Nicki: Just read about Mocha on your blog – good for you for rescuing him! I’m betting Baozi is excited to have a friend.